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<title>One Night at Mr. Dry's by HighWarlockOfBrooklyn</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28940418">One Night at Mr. Dry's</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighWarlockOfBrooklyn/pseuds/HighWarlockOfBrooklyn'>HighWarlockOfBrooklyn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:55:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,124</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28940418</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighWarlockOfBrooklyn/pseuds/HighWarlockOfBrooklyn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing ever happens on Wednesday. Well, there was always something happening, especially in New York, but those ‘somethings’ barely amount to anything worthwhile. Like cogs and sprockets within an automaton, everyone and everything just simply are, evermoving and existing in uninspiring mundaneity, especially on Wednesdays.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>One Night at Mr. Dry's</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nothing ever happens on Wednesday. Well, there was always something happening, especially in New York, but those ‘somethings’ barely amount to anything worthwhile. Like cogs and sprockets within an automaton, everyone and everything just simply are, evermoving and existing in uninspiring mundaneity, especially on Wednesdays.</p><p>What was typically a place of raucous revelry and evenings filled with unbridled guilt, Mr. Dry's would sing a different tune that night. Despite the speakeasy only occupying a small space hidden behind a wig shop, enough for about twenty or thirty people moving and bumping into each other at a time, having it be occupied by no more than ten patrons almost makes it seem as spacious as the Plaza Hotel lobby. Most of the space was reserved for the dance floor and the stage, but there were no patrons wearing out the surface of the dance floor tonight. The band wasn't there either, save for the pianist playing a soulful, delicate tune to match the serene ambience of Mr. Dry's.</p><p>Connor Brannigan was a pale man with a long, severe face, and a mess of auburn hair like the autumn foliage in Central Park. He wore a lose-fitting dark grey three-piece suit and an untied bowtie hanging around his neck. He looked to be in his thirties but he was actually just in his early twenties and he had his stern and serious visage to blame for that. He was a difficult man to read at first glance but his eyes and hands, both gentle and passionate, would tell you a different story. He could play the liveliest upbeat melodies with the rest of his band on the weekends, one might even catch a glimpse of a smile on his face too, but it was on slow days like these when he preferred to play the most. He was practically playing for an empty room, but the pianist's demeanor and focus was the same as he would have any other night. Though he seemed to be quite a daunting person at first, he was not exactly a difficult man to connect with. Like any other man, he reacts quite well with the right kind of drink.</p><p>Behind the marble bar in the far side of Mr. Dry's stood its proprietor and only barman for tonight, Magnus Bane. He appeared to be quite the respectable young man with his perfectly coiffed hair, sharp bright eyes, and prepossessing smile, though no one would imagine someone who looked as young as he was would own the joint. He was wearing a gothic-style, midnight blue waistcoat over a white dress shirt that's unbuttoned just enough to expose his bare chest. The sleeves were rolled up to this elbows so it wouldn't restrict his movements as he mixed drinks. He filled in the shaker in his hands with ice then poured in some whiskey and a chilled, strong brew of earl grey tea. He capped off the open end of a shaker and shook it so that it all blends well together as he hummed along to the tune that Connor was playing. He poured out the light rusty brown liquid into a glass pint then topped it off with ginger ale and stirred it before setting it on a tray. He filled up another glass with just water and let it sit next to his cocktail concoction before putting up the countertop to get to the other side of the counter. He skillfully picked up the tray with one hand then made his way towards the stage.</p><p>“Your drink, sir,” Magnus called out with his most charming smile as he approached the pianist, setting his drinks on the coasters placed atop the piano. Connor turned his head to face him without interrupting his playing. </p><p>“Thanks, Boss,” he smiled and nodded at him in acknowledgement.</p><p>He kept playing, even with one hand, as he took a swig off the drink, inhaling the spicy scent of the whiskey cocktail. Magnus called it The Piano Man in his head since the colour reminded him of the pianist's red hair and the taste of his fiery yet firm passion when playing. Magnus hasn't exactly been a fan of redheads before or green eyes, but people who had a penchant for music and the arts in general have appealed to him. There was just something about the way they made him feel safe and loved even without saying a word. It's a shame what happened to his fiancée, but even after five years he has never taken his ring off. Magnus admired him for that.</p><p>As soon as Connor set down his empty glass and went back to playing with both hands, he smoothly segued into a slightly more upbeat and soulful tune compared to the slow and serene one he had been playing. The pianist's expression subtly lit up which made Magnus perk up a bit as well. No one was sitting by the bar right then as the few people in attendance were satisfied with the bottles of beer they had on the tables, so Magnus thought to stay with Connor for a moment. They didn't speak, if one could believe Magnus capable of not speaking for more than a minute, but he was more than satisfied with just listening to Connor play.</p><p>“Magnus Bane!” came a voice that echoed throughout the room. Magnus recognized it but did not want to hear it at all, not when it was one of the few quiet nights of respite he had at Mr. Dry's. Connor seemed to know who it was too as he simply said, “Good luck,” and punctuated it with a light chuckle.</p><p>After getting a pat down from the doorman, the young man who called out to Magnus followed him back to the bar area. He looked to be barely even legal to drink but he was very clearly made of money and people like him normally think they were above the law. His name was George Vandenbloom and was the shining example of the privileged. He had blonde hair combed neatly, parting towards the right. He also had bright, ocean blue eyes which Magnus would normally be enthralled by, but on other people, not George. He was wearing a loud, yellow, patterned full suit lined with jewels at the lapel and a vest to match but he did not wear any dress shirt underneath. He was adorned in fine gold jewelry around his neck and his hands and wrist and just generally stuck out like a sore thumb. If Magnus was going to be honest, he thought the young man was looking quite tacky even for him who, on special occasions, liked to be adorned in all things glittering and sparkling.</p><p>“Magnus, my friend, I see business is slow these days,” he spoke in an annoying, nasally voice with a terrible imitation of a Trans-Atlantic accent. Or at least that's how it sounded like to Magnus.</p><p>“It's a Wednesday, George, unlike you some people have jobs to busy themselves with,” Magnus replied as he returned to his post behind the counter.</p><p>“You wound me, Magnus, is this how you treat your customers?”</p><p>“Not normally, no, only with you.”</p><p>“I feel special.”</p><p>Magnus really disliked George. Not so much as loathing him but he did feel like he was a massive nuisance. He didn't like the way George would treat him. He was trying to be nice to Magnus which wouldn't normally be bad but not when George, just like any other bored elite out there, was currently into foreign exotic cultures. And Magnus being the closest “foreign exotic person” he could find, meant that George was very much interested in him. Despite all that, Magnus was in no position to have him be blacklisted lest he wanted to risk Little Georgie to run and tell daddy—who was quite close with a certain Officer McMantry—about Magnus's little speakeasy. And so he had to endure a little inconvenience, hoping George tires of his fleeting flights of fancy in the exotics soon.</p><p>“Will you be drinking or do you plan on wasting both of our time?” Magnus asked, his arms folded across his chest.</p><p>“Easy there, Mags, be nice,” said George as he leaned against the edge of the marble bar. “I brought the friend I mentioned before here tonight, see?”</p><p>True enough, he did bring someone along with him. Magnus completely missed him on account of his attention and ire have been directed towards George. Unlike him, this new person was dressed simply and sensibly in a white dress shirt and red tie underneath a brown blazer that was a little bit tattered around the edges, and he also wore black slacks and shoes. Thomas Wagner, George said his name was and he had chestnut brown hair, a lovely set of hazel eyes behind his square, thick-framed glasses, and an apparent burnt scarring on his neck and jaw, something Magnus wouldn't want to ask about, or until the third or fourth drink perhaps. Why a seemingly-ordinary young man was friends with George was beyond Magnus.</p><p>“Pleased to meet you,” Thomas smiled stiffly as he shook hands with Magnus. His grip was just as stiff as his smile and he felt a bit jittery, like he was nervous or something. It took Thomas a couple of seconds too long before he broke away from the handshake. Perhaps he really was nervous, Magnus thought, but for what, he didn't know.</p><p>“Give me the usual, Magnus, and one of your very best for my cousin.”</p><p>Magnus rolled his eyes shut immediately got to work. The sooner George gets his fill, the sooner he might stop talking to him. George's ‘usual’ drink was called The Prick's Drink in Magnus's mind, because he was of course a massive prick.</p><p>“George told me all about this fun operation you got here,” said Thomas.</p><p>“You do know that the main point of this ‘fun operation’ is secrecy?” Magnus was looking at George as he started mixing together equal parts of vodka and rum in a glass jar then followed it with a hefty amount of squeezed lemonade they had in stock.</p><p>“Oh, you don't have to worry about me, sir, I haven't any friends to tattle things to,” Thomas smiled. “That sounded less pathetic in my head.”</p><p>“And that's why I brought my dear cousin here to check out the place before throwing him here 'round the weekend. Fancy schmancy scientists like him ought to be going out more,” George spoke, but Magnus was barely listening, he was filling the jar with ice until it reached its neck before capping it off tightly to shake it and mix the contents until it looked frothy.</p><p>“So you're a scientist?” Magnus asked as he uncapped the jar and poured in the icy, frothy, yellow liquid into a glass goblet, and garnished it with a couple of mint leaves before sliding the glass towards George.</p><p>“A physicist, yes,” Thomas began and then he continued talking about the kind of work he did.</p><p>George laughed and looked at Magnus symapthetically thinking that he might get bored with Thomas's talk of quantum mechanics and equations but he was not. He very much preferred that than listening to another word coming out of George. Magnus would even throw in questions which the physicist was very much excited to answer. Suddenly, he felt grateful for actually listening to Ragnor and his Royal Society friends over coffee all those years ago.</p><p>Thomas did a lot of talking but unlike George, Thomas was actually quite pleasant to talk to. He even told him about how he got his scar from an experiment that went awry back in his university days. He was also genuinely interested in what Magnus was doing as he watched him fix him his drink which involved mixing together moonshine, spiced rum, and lime juice in a shaker. Thomas was amused when he saw Magnus also put in a couple of dashes of Tabasco sauce in there as well as honey. He didn't think any of that fit with alcohol but Magnus was more than happy to explain his methods. George would sometimes throw in a few quips here and there but they would remain largely ignored. After some vigorous shaking, Magnus poured in the lime green liquid in a pint glass until it was all in. He picked up the glass and put it under one of the taps behind the bar and filled the rest with a clear, carbonated lemon-lime liquid of Magnus's own making.</p><p>“Here you go,” Magnus spoke brightly as he set down the pint glass back to the surface of the marble bar then gave it a little stir before pushing it towards Thomas.</p><p>Magnus watched him expectantly as he gulped down from his pint, hoping that the physicist would react well to it. As he drank, his eyes widened and when he set the glass back down a smile formed on his face.</p><p>“This is really good,” said Thomas. “It's sweet but I feel it pack a punch and—woah, I think my head just throbbed a bit.”</p><p>“Let's call it The Quantum Punch then,” Magnus smiled.</p><p>The three of them talked more a bit afterwards, with George finally sounding a lot more tolerable now that he had a drink. By then some of the patrons who had been there on separate tables have started to leave, a few times calling out to Magnus just before they go and he would tell them that he'd be expecting them in a couple of days. Even Connor followed soon after and went home. Not long after that, George already had too much to drink. Thomas held on just fine though and they had the same amount and kind of cocktails to drink.</p><p>“We should get going,” Thomas said.</p><p>“Good, I can't stand your cousin anymore, and it looks like he physically can't stand anymore either,” said Magnus, looking at George, knocked out and slumped over the counter yet still somehow standing. As soon as he said it he almost regretted it not for George's sake but because he thought he might have offended Thomas. But Thomas just laughed and said,</p><p>“Sometimes I can't stand him either, but it's just the money talking, he's a good kid.”</p><p>He helped George out from literally slumping over the counter and flung his cousin's arm around his neck as he carried his weight beside him. George still had the sense to walk, or more accurately wobble, next to his cousin.</p><p>“See you around, Magnus!” Thomas called out without looking back. He faintly heard him say, “Morning, ma'am,” too and when he looked up from cleaning up the glassware there he saw a woman making her way towards the marble bar sporting a nurse's uniform, a black coat over her white dress uniform and a nurse cap still pinned to her hair.</p><p>“That funny looking blonde, was that your admirer?” she asked as soon as she reached the bar and leaned forward and rested her arms over the countertop . She wasn't blue—the literal shade of blue—today as Magnus had observed. She had skin of dark brown and instead of her silvery white hair, her hair was as black as a raven. That was her go to look when under a glamour for the mundanes.</p><p>“My greatest nuisance, yes,” Magnus replied as he took out a couple of fresh old fashioned glasswares and set it aside. “But he was kind of alright today, his cousin Thomas was quite nice.”</p><p>“Do you like him?” she asked as she unpinned the cap from her head, letting loose her raven hair, flowing like the invisible currents hidden deep in the ocean. Magnus was gathering half-and-half, condensed milk, instant coffee, chocolate syrup, and vanilla at the same time.</p><p>“I don't like every well-mannered pretty boy I see, Catarina,” he said as he began pouring in the ingredients he just gathered into an electric blender, mixing them at low speed for half a minute.</p><p>“No, but you'd think they're the bee's knees,” Catarina teased. Her elbows were perched on the counter and her hands joined together underneath her chin as she grinned knowingly at Magnus.</p><p>“Well, he was,” he replied as he filled the two glasswares he set aside earlier with ice. “How are things at St. Mary's?”</p><p>“Where do I even begin,” said Catarina then let out a heavy sigh of exhaustion before she got started on her story.</p><p>It wasn't an easy job being a nurse at a children's hospital, even more so when you were one of the few ‘coloured people’ working there since a lot of children of colour going in there don't get the same treatment and care as the white children. Helping those kids was one of the main reasons why Catarina decided to have her glamour be of someone who was a person of colour. She was already technically coloured originally and while her warlock mark wasn't specifically her point of prejudice, she was still someone who can sympathize with those mundanes, especially the children, who would experience a lot worse.</p><p>As Magnus was listening to her, he started pouring about an ounce of black coffee liqueur in each glass then filled the rest with sarsaparilla. He then topped off both glass with the crème liqueur he concocted in the mixer. He called this one The Graveyard Shift. He listened on to her as she recounted how her day went all while drinking with her. He would refill it every now and then with the black coffee liqueur and crème liqueur until the very last drop, most of which were served to Catarina since between the two of them, she was the one who needed to relax and let out her weariness.</p><p>Before the sun rose, it was finally time to close up shop. Catarina helped Magnus with cleaning up, both sneakily using their magic under the doorman's nose as they did. As soon as they were done, they all came out of the wig shop, which would be open for normal business in a few hours, and parted ways to go home.</p><p>Wednesday didn't turn out to be as uneventful as Magnus had originally thought, perhaps he was wrong in thinking that nothing ever happened on Wednesdays. It would seem that Thursday should be the one to take that crown, as he had experienced after opening up Mr. Dry's the next night. He couldn't hardly wait for Friday, he thought, that's when the fun begins and that's when Magnus—and the rest of his weary-hearted, wayward patrons—would begin to shine and live, there in the mundane world's own brand of Downworld.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just some random practice work, exploring Magnus's character for roleplaying!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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